Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to drive traffic automatically to your site using the WordPress CMS.
In Part 1 of this article series, we explained why using an expertly configured WordPress website is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress website or blog, all you have to do is post new content regularly to automatically begin attracting new web traffic!)
In Part 2, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a website, and what to do if your existing website was built using WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up a WordPress website on your domain)
In this section of the series, we will discuss the configuration phase of the WordPress traffic automation system. You will learn what makes an expertly configured WordPress site different than a professionally configured site. You will also learn how much work is required to make sure that when all is set up and fully configured, visitors will automatically start flowing when you publish fresh content on your site.
WordPress Traffic System – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by most business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. Businesses are becoming so much more competitive on a global scale and are exploring every advantage available to improve their performance online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide website owners with a tremendous advantage. For business owners, having an expertly configured website means having a significant advantage from the word “go”.
The Difference Is In The Configuration Process
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by a website-building expert but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence and an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take extra labor to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special kind of expert knowledge.
Let’s illustrate this with an amusing anecdote.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All was humming along in the widget manufacturing plant when things suddenly came to a halt.
No one could figure out what happened and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert to try and fix the problem.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrived and headed immediately towards the main control box. After staring at the schematics for 2 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny little hammer and made a single tap near the top-right side of the control unit.
Immediately, the whole workshop lit up and came back to life.
The manager was filled with joy as he thanked the expert, who left as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days after resolving the incident, the manager received an invoice for the sum of $5,000.
The factory manager picked up the phone and called the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged such a large amount of money for so little time spent delivering such a minimal amount of work. He promptly requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrived in the manager’s intray. Upon opening it, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to consistently drive web traffic to their sites.
In the above story, how much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when production stopped working and no one in the business had the expertise to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have every right to be compensated fairly for spending years acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your web site configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and dozens of other online properties would be automatically notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much better would your business be if you could automate the process of driving traffic to your website?)
Although the solution to many problems often seems ridiculously simple once it’s been implemented, it rarely is that simple or easy when you try to figure things out.
Expertly configuring a WordPress site requires more than adding some pages with content and configuring a few basic settings. It involves knowing where to tap! This includes knowing things like:
- Which programs you need to install to add desired functionalities to your site.
- Which services you need to set up to get desired results
- Which settings you need to configure to make sure everything functions exactly as you have planned, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite complicated. It’s not just about installing one or two plugins, tweaking some settings in your admin area or clicking a couple of buttons … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration phase is a complex process that involves your server, your site, and a number of third-party sites and/or online services …
(The configuration stage involves more than just configuring some WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the steps involved in the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic diagram showing the activities involved in the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Your Web Server
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for website installation purposes (this is normally done during the Setup phase). What we are talking about, is fine-tuning settings and options in your server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration stage, your server settings need to be fine-tuned for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the web traffic your website will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, is all about planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include things like configuring server-level spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring your domain and email forwarding, etc …
(Have you configured your hosting control panel settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After checking your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up various third-party sites.
External Sites & Solutions – Configuration
The basic concept of setting up external sites is that all of your content should be posted to a central location (your WordPress site) and from there, it will radiate outwards to other parts of your web traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and applications.
After adding these external platforms to your traffic system, content linked back to your site will be automatically published on search, social and aggregator sites. Your content and website will benefit from exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the sites and services will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress settings to help speed up the process and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, you will want to set up the following accounts before configuring your WordPress settings:
Google Webmaster Tools
(Google Search Console – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you inform Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides site owners with a range of important data, SEO tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account, you can use this information with traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, user engagement, marketing activities, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
Once your Google Analytics account and site details are set up, your account data can be integrated with WordPress using a plugin used with other applications and reporting tools.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your account and entering site details with Bing Webmaster Tools, this information can be used to automate web traffic-related settings in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users the option of a hosted vs self-hosted website. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you are planning to grow a professional web presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great tools, which a number of WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll explain how to integrate these features into your traffic system in Part Four of this series.
Social Media
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and get new traffic to your site)
You will need your social accounts set up in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media sites and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have accounts and pages set up with all of the big social networks – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can You can post your content to lots of social bookmarking sites. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose those that will work with your setup and/or content syndication tools (we will cover some of these tools in more detail further below and during the Automation phase).
(There are lots of social sites you can post your content to. Image: ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are many emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can act as secondary-level sources of traffic. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different user types.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that allows you to add a feed from your site …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your RebelMouse social feed.
There are many different sites and platforms you can add to your own traffic blueprint. Please contact us if you need assistance exploring some of these, or to discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your server settings and set up accounts with third-party sites, it’s time to configure your WordPress site’s settings.
WordPress – Configuring Your Site
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to ensure that its global settings have been correctly set up.
Let’s go over some of the important points.
WordPress Settings
Your WordPress admin area contains a Settings menu that allows you to set up your site’s global settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline can affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings)
Writing
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked automated traffic notification system …
(Settings Menu – Writing Settings)
As described in this section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have intentionally chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically ping the update services entered into the Update Services text area
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Update Services – A Powerful Traffic Feature)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading Settings
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full text vs summaries of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS readers and blog post digests, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website to read the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is enabled or not.
Typically, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows your site to automatically ping the list of update services when a new post is published (see Writing Settings above). Unless there is a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Section)
Discussion
Although discussion settings are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to blogs linked to from your articles, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Global Settings – Discussion Settings)
Permalinks
Permalinks allow you to create search engine-friendly URLs …
(Global Settings – Permalinks)
Here are some of the options for configuring your permalink URLs …
(Configuring permalink URLs)
For a detailed step-by-step tutorial on setting up permalinks in WordPress, go here: Using Permalinks To Improve Your WordPress SEO
Configuring WordPress Traffic Plugins
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every kind of functionality imaginable to your website, including plugins that add traffic generation capabilities.
Let’s take a brief look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your WordPress site for dealing with both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot ignore the importance of securing your site.
(Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your website invisible to bots and hackers.
More information:
WordPress SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages easy for search engines to find and index …
(SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive more traffic by improving the search engine friendliness of your website)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your SEO. Once properly configured, this plugin not only makes your site easier for search engines to find and index, it also gives you control over how your content is presented to Google’s search results and social media sites Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
Social Plugins
Allowing your visitors to easily share your content online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides great content that adds value to readers.
(You can add social sharing buttons to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins to choose from.
Many social share plugins allow you to select which social sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of followers), etc. Some plugins even allow you to ‘lock’ content which users can unlock by sharing your page.
Themes
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that can help grow your site’s traffic.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, some themes also include built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in traffic optimization features)
With many themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as selecting the option to enable this functions …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily turned on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic System Configuration – Additional Things To Consider
Last but not least in the traffic configuration process, are the elements that need to be set up outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Compliance Web Pages
Once again, when preparing your site for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only how to handle good and bad traffic but also for all the situations that can cause serious damage to your business when more and more people start finding and visiting your website.
If you make money online (or are planning to), it’s important that your site is compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With All Legal Requirements?)
We have written a detailed article about adding legal pages to WordPress here:
WordPress Categories And Tags
Post tags & post categories help to improve your site’s SEO, which helps to increase traffic.
(Categories help improve traffic by improving your site’s search engine optimization.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stage.
In the configuration phase, you will want to review and make sure that the post tags and categories you have set up.
A Site Map Of Your Pages and Posts
A visitor site map that lists all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external tools discover more of your web content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
Note: An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. Although search engines like Google will index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Forget To Configure This Too!
When visitors searching for your website type in the wrong web address into their browser or click on a link pointing to an incorrect destination on your site, they are greeted with an error – page not found message …
(A 404 Error Page)
A 404 Error Page can be configured into a useful source of traffic to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found page can be set up in your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin area.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once you have your site fully set up and expertly configured, all you need to do then to begin attracting web traffic is post fresh content on a regular basis.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, can be quite involved , requiring the configuration and integration of various components and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The skills and knowledge involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes some website developers months to learn.
Once you have configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the process. This step is addressed in the next article in our WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint series.
This is the end of Section Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of an tutorial series aimed at helping small business owners learn how to grow their business online using a WordPress-driven website or blog and proven web marketing methods.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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